Retro Shovel's Top 30 Atari 2600 Games 

Good list of games, I would put them in a different order myself, but like you said it is a retro thing. Pac-man is a great example, even though everyone can agree that it is not a good version, when I was a kid I still played it plenty, as it was the version of pac-man that I could play at home. Games I liked not on the list: Demon Attack, Adventure, Superman and Maze Craze. Good video.

Keystone Kapers should've been on here

Where’s kaboom?!?!

Defender, berzerk and moon patrol should have been in there

Great list. Here’s mine: 30) Combat. So many great memories with my friend. Air-Sea battle an honorable mention here. 29) Secret Quest. The precursor to Zelda. 28) E.T. For nostalgia only. My friend had this and I played it all the time, much to his frustration as he thought it sucked and that my time would have better spent doing anything besides. 27) Klax. Tengen puzzle gem. 26) Joust. Decent port. 26) Kaboom. Great paddle game. 25) Enduro. Favor this over Pole Position, though I had Pole Position II on the 7800, and it was great. 24) Keystone Kapers 23) Asteroids. I know this would be higher on many people’s list. But not mine. Hey at least I have it over Sinistar and Defender. 22) Jr PAC Man 21) Rescue Princess. This is a homebrew from animator Chris Spry that is *heavily* inspired by Super Mario Bros. Crazy that he got a decent looking (and sounding) version on the 2600. Worth checking out 20) Qbert. Decent port. 19) Atari Climber. 18) Millipede. Honorable mention is Centipede. Both are massively better with the arcade trackball. Sorry to those that hold these two in higher esteem. 17) Commando. Great shooter game, late in the Atari 2600 life. Ikari Warriors is an honorable mention. 16) Donkey Kong. This wasn’t bad but was missing a couple level designs. Sorry DK Jr didn’t cut it at 2600, but was a great 7800 game. 15) Yars Return/Yars Revenge (yup, lumping both together) 14) Indiana Jones 13) Seaquest. Honorable mention to another Activision horizontal shooting gem, Command Chopper. 12) Dig Dug. Honorable mention to Mr Do. 11) Toyshop Trouble. Another great homebrew. 10) Space Invaders. 9) HERO 8) Berserk 7) Ms Pac-Man. Big boost when it went to 7800. 6) Missile Command 5) Galaxian. Honorable mention to Phoenix, Worm War, Demon Attack and Spider Fighter. 4) Frogger 3) Wizard of Wor. Huge fan of this game. Probably spent more time playing this with my friend in the early 80s than any other game 2) Pitfall/Pitfall 2 . I realize these are completely different games, but I wanted both on here... 1) Mario Bros.

Great list! Thanks for the great memories!

Great video and list of games. So many of my all time favorites on this list. Just subscribed.

Stunned that neither Pitfall 2 nor Phoenix were in there!

Pitfall should be ranked much higher. It's the game that resuscitated the 2600, after the devastation known as Pac-man. Video well done!

Wow! Amazing list. All great games. I like to see not so common games get some attention.

I played HERO at another country at least 25 years ago and I couldn't remember the name of this game. I searched every so often. Thank you for including it!

I am 40 years old but playing every day the river raid with Atari 2600

Nice video, and nice list! Liked, and subscribed.

Ok... So you put "Pac Man" in front of "Yars Revenge", but totally leave out the classic "Ms. Pac Man"??? You, my friend, need to turn in your "Atari Force" patch and official I.D. card... 😊😉

wow another great Underrated channel you deserve way more subs

Excellent list! I appreciate how many licensed titles are on the list. Several I had never heard from! Jawbreaker looks intense!

EXCELLENT list Retro Shovel. I never had an actual 2600 back in the day but I did get expansion module #1 the day after Christmas 1982 when my brother & I FINALLY got our FIRST console - that being the ColecoVision. By 1/1/83 we pooled enough of our after school job $$ to get 4 carts - being Space Invaders, Yars Revenge, Asteroids, and Missile Command. We still had enough $$ left over for a ColecoVision game and we got DK Jr the day it came out... I'm assuming your list is for 2600 games available back in the day. I notice you left out some EXCELLENT HOME-BREWS - most notably Pac Man 4K (had this come out back in 81 the crash may NEVER have happened), Princess Rescue (SMB 2600), Zippy the Porcupine (Sonic 2600), Berzerk VOICE ENHANCED, Edtris (Tetris 2600), and Asteroids - vector edition. My only issue is how ANTI CLIMATIC #1 on your list is. While Spider Fighter is a decent game - it doesn't compare to anything on your top ten. Heck - I thought Demon Attack was a much better game; and where are Ms. Pac Man and Jr. Pac Man?? not to mention Stampede, Circus Atari, and Kaboom??

Remember when you had to take a picture of your qualifying high score on Activision games, wait for it to be developed, send it in via snail mail and wait for your patch to arrive?

Awesome Vid. Thanks. Never knew Mario Bros was on this system

Good list overall. Megamania and decathlon was cool too. Pole position and berzerk should defo be in top 30 too !

Holy shit!!! The parallax scrolling on Jungle Hunt is a sight to behold!!

Great list

While I don't agree with the ranking (Enduro and Pitfall! so low; omission of Kaboom!, Adventure, Breakout, Centipede, Moon Patrol, etc.), nor like the demonic voice that announces each ranking, it was fun to see footage of some of these classic games.

Where did you find the graphics for those cool looking small boxes of the games?

I would have put centipede or millipede on the list . And I loved megamania .

I've never heard of most of these. I was surprised to see that frogger made the list, it was one of my favorites.

SeaQuest is my #1.

Very cool.

i remember playing some of these games. But, i forgotten where and when I've played it before. seems like so long ago..:p

no pitfall 2, or pacman jr, donkey kong?

Didn’t realize as a kid how much an outlet this was. Childhood had its challenges

Warlords is deserving as a single player alone, but with four it's tops hand down, no question.

Should be titled "30 Games I Played For The Atari 2600"

Missed only keystone kapers, seaquest and adventure.

Dintar's pacman is the best past or present. It has all intermissions and wonderful sound effects!

SOLID LIST!

Ms Pacman and Pacman Jr are far superior than the original game. Lots of cool games on here though. Cosmic Ark is awesome.

Was addicted to Decathlon as a kid.

nice! missing Joust Centipede, Mash, Fantastic Voyage and Kaboom

I spent a lot of time with Spider Fighter and Frostbite. I think Combat came with the Sears version of the console. I remember plugging in the paddles to drive the tank and it would go crazy!

My alltime game is Atlantis Good List 👍

Spider Fighter as number 1? That's such an amazing game!

Congratulations on friend selection. most Game to this day! I have many games that I consider my favorites, and for me they are timeless... I'm going to mention 10 of my TOP 100 from atari lol... - BOXING - CHOPPER COMMAND - ENDURO - FREEWAY - FROGGER - FROSTBITE - KABOOM! - MEGAMANY - SEAQUEST - TENNIS so what did you think of my list?

no double dragon or ghost busters?

Spider Fighter was my favorite too!

Should I get an Atari 2600 or NES first

Mountain king and raiders of the lost ark and also chopper command

Ms Pac-Man, Phoenix, Tunnel Runner, Keystone Kapers... so many great ones

As usual, I miss Solaris. One of the most underrated and best Atari 2600 games.

You have some unique tastes. I’m surprised Pac Man made your list considering its reputation. I would have put Defender and Berzeek on my list.

Pitfall 2, Haunted House, Laser Blast, Bermuda Triangle, Dark Chambers, Space Attack and Megamania would be on my list.

No Joust or Astrosmash ? Keystone Capers ?

re enduro at snow scene your car is GONE i cant see anything its supposed to be grey. why it invisible

cool games

All great games, and too easy to find another 25 games to add to a longer list. The Box art for Fast Food, I liked that, don't recall seeing the box for it before,; that game is fun to play too, yes the concept is simple but the gameplay is addictive.

Ms. Pacman on ATARI was way better than the version of Pacman shown here.

I love Maze Craze. excellent game

Wow the Snoopy game had good graphics.

Although there are obviously many great Atari 2600 games to choose from - enough to have variances in lists - these are my Top 30, though they're not exactly in order. That would have been too much to assess. I probably could've made a list of Activision games on their own, being that they were great titles. Anyway, my top 30 Atari games list is: 1. Adventure 2. Missile Command 3. Yars' Revenge 4. Space Invaders 5. Bowling 6 Enduro 7. Ice Hockey 8. Pitfall! 9. Pitfall ll 10. Decathlon 11. Golf 12. Asteroids 13. Frogger 14. Freeway 15. Galaxian 16. Burgertime 17. Human Cannonball 18. Dodge 'em 19. Jungle Hunt 20. Joust 21. Skiing 22. Tennis 23. Keystone Kapers 24. Super Breakout 25. Kaboom! 26. Gorf 27. Demon Attack 28. H.E.R.O. 29. Millipede 30. Pinball

I disagree with a lot of this list, but I *do* think Spider Fighter is underrated and I like it a lot. Adventure, which was absolutely ground-breaking, should be there, as should Midnight Magic, an amazingly good pinball sim that was overlooked because it came out relatively late when not many people were paying attention to the 2600. Solaris was Doug Neubauer's attempt to one-up Star Raiders on a more limited platform. Imagic's Star Voyager was the best and simplest of the Star Raiders-inspired first-person space shooters. Atari's Battlezone and Stargate were technically impressive arcade ports (Battlezone completely eschewed the visual style of the original and instead used a colorful style that played to the platform's strengths). Atari's own port of Phoenix gave Demon Attack a run for its money. Parker Brothers' port of Gyruss gets extra credit just for being a respectable port of Gyruss. Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man on the 2600 were both far, far superior to the port of the original--proof that Atari could actually make a decent Pac-Man port.

Video Olympics and Indy 500 are both good fun

It's all about the high score 💚

I've just treated myself to a Flashback machine for lockdown. Something to burn time and take my mind off things. The modern games just don't do it for me, although my era was more 16 bit and Atari ST. I am loving 'Safe Mary', although as a woman I'd quite like to save a guy (role reversal) - sure these games are more designed with the male in mind.

Sequest and megamania??

The hacked version of snoopy and the red baron is great.

There's definitely some shooter games fans working on this list...

Two more games that I liked on Atari areSpiderman and Pinball.

Dude.. Yars Revenge....🤙

Millipede, moon patrol, solaris, venture, dig dug, qbert to name a few

Well, this is your personal opinion, so I'm not going to bitch about your list like I'm sure plenty of others have already done. Also, people need to realize that the 2600 had over 700 unique games released for it(not counting after-market homebrews), so there are probably lots of great games that you've never played and therefore they didn't make your list. Anyway, I personally would have put H.E.R.O much higher on the list, and I am quite surprised to see you include Pac-Man on the list and not the far superior port of Ms. Pac-Man or Jr. Pac-Man. Here are some of my favorite 2600 games that didn't make your list: Sword of Saros (why doesn't anyone ever talk about this fantastic game!? It's an absolute MUST play, and one of the first ever RPG's!), Venture, Berzerk, Adventure, Secret Quest, and Dark Chambers.

Adventure, Pitfall and Haunted House are my top 3.

So when are you going to make another video

no adventure ? pitfall way to low , but still good vid , and pac man was such an emparesment , i remeber at xmas mant kids were not happy back in day , Casino was great game too for 4 players , and superman was great too

Top 10 for Atari 2600 according to my opinion: 1) Zaxon, 2) Defender II, 3) Batlezone, 4) Joust, 5) Space attack, 6) tennis, 7) Quest in Quintana Roo, 8) UFO vs canons, 9) Missile Command, 10) Space attack

Nice to see Worm War I get some love-- and I like a lot of your picks. However, I guess there are quite a few games I'd put in. Ms. Pacman over Pacman any day. Even given nostalgia. Midnight Magic would be in there. Centipede. Air/Sea Battle. Aliens. Kaboom. Dragon Fire. Venture. Reactor. Vanguard. Demolition Herby. Dodge Em. Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back is the better Star Wars game. Turmoil over Jawbreaker. Megamania is better than Spider Fighter. And, if you're counting Supercharger games, the best game ever made for the 2600 is Dragonstomper. It also has a superior Frogger game, The Official Frogger. Definite omissions from your list: 30, 27, 26, 20 (no better than fifth best Pacman game on the system), 19 (most overrated game for the system, unless it's its sequel), 15, 11, 10 (anything requiring two players gets bumped out), 8, 6, 4, 2 (second most overrated game).

The 2600 versions of Beamrider and Phoenix are both worth playing.

if Kaboom is not on this I will be pissed

Tron Deadly Discs was an adaptation of the famous Intellivision game. Ciao!

🕹 Atari the good old days.

What about KeyStone Kappers...fun game.....and Oink

Was waiting for "Adventure" to be No. 1. Do'h! You put Pac-Man on the list - a horrible rendition of the game - and leave Adventure, Maze Craze and Haunted House off the list, not to mention Dark Chambers. Hell, I'd even throw E.T. onto your list. It was actually a good game, contrary to the myth that the game resulted in the game bust of the early 1980s. I had barely heard of half of your picks and own at least a hundred of these games via cartridge. Were you a child of the 1970s and 1980s or is this a perspective from an emulator from the current century? Good video, though. And thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Some of my favs were Tunnel Runner Journey - Escape Joust Centipede Wizard of Wor Defender Raiders of the Lost Ark Megamania The worst game I ever bought (it was only $0.99) was Sorcerer by Mythicon. I think this company made three games and at least two of them were exactly the same with slightly different graphics (the other being Firefly). I'd played some bad 2600 games, but this was just awful. E.T. was a masterpiece compared to this game.

There is a worm war 1 hack that turns those worms into Zombies!

Pitfall is #19 in the list ? really ?

I want atari 2600 game with river raid game

turmoil? Mountain King? dodgem? Qbert?

spider fighter me encantaba

No Haunted House??

No donkey kong?

No Chopper Command?? No Star Master?? No Tunnel Runner??

Megamania is a top ten game

You forgot dodgem cars it wasn't in the top 30

Pitfall is a super great game. Many ahead of it on Ur list I never played during that time, so maybe they are better? Seaquest? Ms Pacman was way better than Pacman on 2600.

No Adventure??

The following games would make my list but did not make the poster's: Berzerk! Starmaster Star Raiders Robot Tank Battlezone Centipede Moon Patrol Super Breakout Joust Defender

I loved atari joysticks, used them on c64 instead of any commodore versions.... man we flogged those games😂😂😂

Adventure should be in that list..its in every top 10 list..my favorite. Pacman was one of the worst ports ever

Seaquest, Air Sea Battle, Oink and Empire Strikes Back were pretty good. Activision games were usually better.

Tons of Activision games on there. Go figure they did make some of the best games

Does anyone remember the trick for Space Invaders? Hold down reset button at the same time while turning on console and you get double fire! I could literally wipe out the whole screen in 10 seconds. I turned over Space Invaders at least 10 times. I could be playing for hours on a good day.